Ultra-high baud rate VLF magnetoelectric antenna based on Rosen-type composite

Abstract

Long-wave antennas are extensively used in special environment communications, such as underwater and underground applications, but the huge size of traditional electrical antennas restricts their applications. The emergent acoustically excited magnetoelectric (ME) antennas is expected to solve the portability problem. However, the contradiction between the radiation intensity and modulation rate (i.e., baud rate) of ME antenna remains an obstacle to its development. Here, we propose a very low frequency (VLF, 3–30 kHz) ME antenna based on a Rosen-type magnetostrictive-piezoelectric ME composite, which collaboratively optimizes both radiation intensity and transmission rate. The radiation intensity and efficiency of the proposed ME antenna were, respectively, two and three orders of magnitude higher than those of a same-sized loop antenna. A VLF communication system based on the Rosen-type ME antenna utilized amplitude shift keying (ASK) modulation was demonstrated. The system achieved an ultra-high baud rate of up to 2 kbaud (i.e., 2 kbps bit rate), confirming the feasibility of this approach.